scholarly journals Heat transfer study of poly-c PV system integrated with phase change material under semi-arid area (Errachidia-Drâa Tafilalet)

2021 ◽  
Vol 297 ◽  
pp. 01008
Author(s):  
Ibtissam Lamaamar ◽  
Amine Tilioua ◽  
Zaineb Benzaid ◽  
Abdelouahed Ait Msaad ◽  
Moulay Ahmed Hamdi Alaoui

The high operating temperature of the photovoltaic (PV) modules decreases significantly its efficiency. The integration of phase change material (PCM) is one of the feasible techniques for reducing the operating temperature of the PV module. A numerical simulation of the PV module with PCM and without PCM has been realized. The thermal behavior of the PV module was evaluated at the melting and solidification processes of PCM. The results show that the integration of RT35HC PCM with a thickness of 4 cm reduces the temperature of the PV module by 8 °C compared to the reference module. Compared the RT35 and RT35HC, we found that the latent heat has a significant effect on the PCM thermal comportment. Furthermore, it has been found that the thermal resistance of the layers plays an important role to dissipate the heat from the PV cells to the PCM layer, consequently improving the heat transfer inside the PV/PCM system.

Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 897 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rajvikram Elavarasan ◽  
Karthikeyan Velmurugan ◽  
Umashankar Subramaniam ◽  
A Kumar ◽  
Dhafer Almakhles

The solar photovoltaic (PV) system is emerging energetically in meeting the present energy demands. A rise in PV module temperature reduces the electrical efficiency, which fails to meet the expected energy demand. The main objective of this research was to study the nature of OM29, which is an organic phase change material (PCM) used for PV module cooling during the summer season. A heat transfer network was developed to minimize the experimental difficulties and represent the working model as an electrical resistance circuit. Most existing PV module temperature (TPV) reduction technology fails to achieve the effective heat transfer from the PV module to PCM because there is an intermediate layer between the PV module and PCM. In this proposed method, liquid PCM is filled directly on the back surface of the PV module to overcome the conduction barrier and PCM attains the thermal energy directly from the PV module. Further, the rear side of the PCM is enclosed by tin combined with aluminium to avoid any leakages during phase change. Experimental results show that the PV module temperature decreased by a maximum of 1.2 °C using OM29 until 08:30. However, after 09:00, the OM29 PCM was unable to lower the TPV because OM29 is not capable of maintaining the latent heat property for a longer time and total amount of the PCM experimented in this study was not sufficient to store the PV module generated thermal energy for an entire day. The inability of the presented PCM to lower the temperature of the PV panel was attributed to the lower melting point of OM29. PCM back sheet was incapable of dissipating the stored PCM’s thermal energy to the ambient, and this makes the experimented PCM unsuitable for the selected location during summer.


Author(s):  
V. Shatikian ◽  
V. Dubovsky ◽  
G. Ziskind ◽  
R. Letan

The present study explores numerically the processes of melting and solidification of a phase change material (PCM). The material used was a commercially available paraffin wax, which is non-toxic, recyclable, chemically inert, non-corrosive and can withstand an unlimited number of cycles. The phase-change material was stored in a rectangular box, open at the top. The bottom of the box could be heated or cooled. The inner space of the box was partitioned by vertical conducting plates attached to the bottom. Thus, heat was transferred to and from the PCM both through its melted/solidified layer and by conduction through the vertical plates. Transient two-dimensional numerical simulations were performed using the Fluent 6.0 software. The melting temperature of the wax, 23–25°C was incorporated in the simulations along with its other properties, including the latent and sensible specific heat, thermal conductivity and density in solid and liquid states. The simulations provided detailed temperature and phase fields inside the system as functions of time, showing evolution of the heat transfer in the system as the phase change material melts/solidifies. The dependence of the heat transfer rate on the properties of the system and on the PCM phase composition at various time instants is presented and discussed.


2015 ◽  
Vol 137 (10) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Allen ◽  
Theodore L. Bergman ◽  
Amir Faghri ◽  
Nourouddin Sharifi

Experiments are performed to analyze melting and solidification of a phase change material (PCM) enclosed in a vertical cylinder by a concentrically located heat pipe (HP) surrounded by either aluminum foam or radial aluminum foils. The PCM liquid fraction, temperature distribution, melting (solidification) rates, and effectiveness are reported to quantify the improvement in thermal performance relative to a base case, a Rod-PCM configuration. Parameters of interest include the porosity of the PCM-metal composite, the foil thickness, the number of foils, and the foam pore density. The main contributor to enhanced performance is shown to be the porosity for both the HP-Foil-PCM and HP-Foam-PCM configurations. Both of these configurations improve heat transfer rates relative to either the HP-PCM or the Rod-PCM configuration. However, the HP-Foil-PCM configuration with one-third of the metal (foil) mass is shown to have approximately the same performance as the HP-Foam-PCM configuration, for the range of porosities studied here (0.870–0.987). This may be attributed to the metal morphology and resulting contact area between the metal enhancer and the HP. The HP-Foil-PCM configuration, with a porosity of 0.957 using 162 foils of thickness 0.024 mm, attained an overall rate of phase change that is about 15 times greater than that of the Rod-PCM configuration and about 10 times greater than that of the HP-PCM configuration. The greatest degree of enhancement was achieved with the HP-Foil-PCM configuration (with porosity 0.957) yielding an average effectiveness during melting (solidification) of 14.7 (8.4), which is an extraordinary improvement over the base case.


2019 ◽  
Vol 111 ◽  
pp. 01001
Author(s):  
Hansol Lim ◽  
Hye-Jin Cho ◽  
Seong-Yong Cheon ◽  
Soo-Jin Lee ◽  
Jae-Weon Jeong

A phase change material based radiant cooling panel with thermoelectric module (PCM-TERCP) is proposed in this study. It consists of two aluminium panels, and phase change materials (PCMs) sandwiched between the two panels. Thermoelectric modules (TEMs) are attached to one of the aluminium panels, and heat sinks are attached to the top side of TEMs. PCM-TERCP is a thermal energy storage concept equipment, in which TEMs freeze the PCM during the night whose melting temperature is 16○C. Therefore, the radiant cooling panel can maintain a surface temperature of 16◦C without the operation of TEM during the day. Furthermore, it is necessary to design the PCM-TERCP in a way that it can maintain the panel surface temperature during the targeted operating time. Therefore, the numerical model was developed using finite difference method to evaluate the thermal behaviour of PCM-TERCP. Experiments were also conducted to validate the performance of the developed model. Using the developed model, the possible operation time was investigated to determine the overall heat transfer coefficient required between radiant cooling panel and TEM. Consequently, the results showed that a overall heat transfer coefficient of 394 W/m2K is required to maintain the surface temperature between 16○C to 18○C for a 3 hours operation.


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